by Anna Lowe
Janna and Tina dashed in to help, too, and as they took over, he caught a glimpse of wicked burn scars running down the woman’s arm.
“Rick, get her a cushion.”
“Get her a glass of water, too,” Jess said, kneeling by the woman.
“I’m fine,” the woman insisted, but her voice was weak and uncertain. “Just need a minute…”
She needed about six weeks, Cole figured, until that baby was ready to take on the world. The woman was gaunt, but her belly was stretched with what had to be seven or eight months of baby. For a moment, he panicked, thinking she might be in early labor.
The woman puffed once or twice and sat straighter. “I’m fine,” she repeated, a little more insistently.
The curtain of her hair fell back, and Soren froze in front of her, holding a glass in midair.
“Soren!” Janna chided.
“Soren?” the newcomer whispered.
“Sarah,” he whispered, barely above the sound of his breath.
For a moment, everyone stood still. Time stood still, and Cole’s mind whirled. Janna had explained about Soren being in love with a human from back home in Montana. A girl named Sarah who’d died in a fire…
One look at the way Soren and the woman stared at each other told him this was that Sarah. So she hadn’t died in that fire. She was alive. Alive and expecting a baby…
His mind spun through the math. According to Janna, the fire happened seven months ago and Soren had been away a few months before that. Which meant that baby had to have been conceived sometime after Soren left.
Oh, shit.
The woman’s hand dropped to her rounded belly, and when Soren’s eyes followed, the glass slipped out of his hand and shattered on the floor.
The woman’s eyes remained dry, but her expression wept with something like, Let me explain.
Before the splinters came to rest on the new linoleum floor, Soren wheeled and strode out of the room. Not a word. Not a backward glance. Not a sign of emotion. But the air around him wavered with sorrow and doubt.
“Soren!” Janna called sharply, but the bear shifter was gone.
Cole’s eyes met Janna’s and he gulped. They’d found their happiness — but Soren… God, how would he ever find his?
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Sneak Peek I: Redemption
Book 3 in the Blue Moon Saloon series
Bear shifter Soren Voss lives and breathes for the new clan he leads. It’s all he has left after the rogue ambush that murdered the woman he loved — the woman he swears he’ll always love, even if it’s only in his dreams. But the day this alpha’s dream comes true is also the start of a nightmare, because his destined mate may no longer be his and his alone. Is it fate’s way of torturing him or his last chance at redemption?
Sarah Boone narrowly escaped the inferno that claimed her family and her home. For months, she’s been on the run with a secret that has become impossible to hide. But the clock is ticking, and she needs a place to settle down soon. She never expected to find the love of her life running a funky little place called the Blue Moon Saloon. He’s darker and more dangerous than ever, but somehow more vulnerable, too. Does she have it in her to be the woman her world-weary warrior needs most of all?
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Sneak Peek II
Redemption: Chapter 1
“Man, where are those two?” Soren looked around. “Everyone’s ready but them.”
Jessica stopped unwrapping the foil at the neck of the champagne bottle to chuckle. “I can guess where Janna and Cole are — in bed, snoozing or shagging.”
Soren sighed. It was to be expected of freshly mated shifters in his growing little clan. But really, could those two not drag themselves out of bed by eleven?
“I’ll get them,” he sighed. He headed out the back door of the café, into the door of the neighboring saloon he ran with his brother, up the creaky stairs, and down the hallway until he came to the happy couple’s door and knocked.
“Janna! Cole!”
The giggle that had been drifting through the door broke off abruptly. Yep, those two were busy, all right.
Mates, his inner bear whispered sadly.
He let a few seconds tick by, swallowed away the lump in his throat, and knocked again.
“Janna!” he called, and even his inner bear winced a little at the way it came out. He hadn’t meant to bark quite so sharply, though it sure did come out that way.
Happy, his bear reminded him. Be happy for them.
He was happy for them. Truly. It was just hard to forget that he’d once dreamed of mornings like that. Joyous mornings, waking up beside his own mate. Carefree mornings, watching her smile in her sleep. Sensual mornings, when an innocent touch or a quick kiss could so easily turn into more.
When he closed his eyes, he could still see her. Sarah, his destined mate. His dreams had been full of her last night, even more than usual. He could still see the beautiful visions of Sarah tossing her hair over her shoulder and telling him about her day. Of her turning to look at him with those incredible emerald eyes.
What are you looking at? she’d tease him.
You, he’d say. You.
His perfect, destined mate. He could still see the sun shine off her fiery red hair, still smell her huckleberry scent. Sometimes, it seemed so fresh and near, he could swear she was still alive. He’d woken that morning believing she might be walking down the street outside. She’d seemed so painfully real, so torturously close.
He curled his fingers, then flexed then, then curled them again. A little ritual that kept the pain and anger at bay as well as keeping his bear claws safely tucked inside. Later on, he’d head to the woods and scrape those three-inch claws down the trunks of a few trees. He’d let his bear cry and roar everything he couldn’t let out as a man. He’d rip at one tree after another until he was worn and bleeding and ready to pretend he was okay with the cards fate had dealt him for yet another day.
He cleared his throat and called out again. “Come on! Jess needs everyone downstairs, now.”
It was an important day for Jessica: pre-opening day in her new business, the café right next to the saloon. In fact, it was an important day for each and every one of them — the handful of wolf and bear shifters who’d banded together here in this high-altitude Arizona town. They were growing as a business and as a clan. Looking to the future. As alpha, it was his job to lead and coordinate it all.
Look to the future, his bear mumbled unenthusiastically. Not to the past.
Which would be easy to do if his mate were alive. If he hadn’t been away the night of the rogue attack that she’d fallen victim to along with so many others who’d been burned alive.
“Get moving, already,” he said as much to himself as to the happy couple behind the door.
He lumbered down the stairs and back into the café, where he snagged his second coffee of the day and thought of his grandfather, the legendary alpha, who had lived decades after his mate died. Decades that might have been his best as an alpha, because he lived entirely for the clan.
Soren snorted. Technically, that ought to mean he was all set to become the best fucking alpha of all time, because he’d lost his mate so young. He wasn’t even forty,
damn it. Not even close. He hadn’t even had a chance to fully bond with the love of his love through a mating bite before she died. Hadn’t even had the chance to reveal to her who he truly was — or what he was. A bear shifter. A pretty damn ferocious one who would fight to the death for her, if only he had been given the chance.
He cursed fate for the thousandth time in the past year and shuffled slowly to join the shifters gathered in the front room to toast the opening of the café.
“They coming?” his brother — the only other bear shifter in their unusual little bear/wolf clan — asked.
He nodded and looked around. The other three present were all wolf shifters, two from neighboring Twin Moon Ranch and the other, his brother’s mate, Jessica. The woman of the hour.
He took a deep breath and did as a good alpha should: locked away his own regrets and focused on the good of his clan.
“Okay, everybody. Here we go,” Jessica said once Janna and Cole finally turned up. “To the Quarter Moon Café.”
“To the Quarter Moon Café,” everyone echoed with a hearty cheer.
“To a great manager,” Tina raised her glass in Jessica’s direction.
Soren raised his glass higher. Jess deserved it, after all the work she’d put in for both the saloon and now, the café.
“To lots more muffins,” his brother added.
“To more working hours,” Janna chimed in, wearing a wry smile.
Soren nodded to himself. That was the next problem he had to solve: finding more staff to run the saloon and the café. While their customers were mostly humans, it was safer to keep an all-shifter staff. Otherwise, it would be too easy for their shapeshifting abilities to come to light. That was the only thing shifters truly feared: exposure. Even though most shifters were peaceful, law-abiding types, there was no telling what kind of witch hunt humans would go on if they discovered there were shifters living among them.
“I found someone to help here all next week,” Tina said. “After that…well, I’m working on it.”
The shadow of a passerby drifted past the front windows, and Soren looked up in spite of himself. Damn those dreams he’d had last night. He was seeing Sarah everywhere now. Her flowing red hair. That smile that lit his world up. That tomboy spunk lying just under the surface of a tough, no-nonsense woman.
He shook his head and turned away from the windows, shaking his head. He hadn’t been raised to be a fool. He’d been raised to be the alpha of a bear clan, and damn it, that’s what he’d do.
He forced himself to talk business with Tina’s mate Rick, the owner of a local ranch. That’s where his mind ought to be — finding and pulling in new hires to keep the businesses growing.
But a commotion broke out by the front door and he couldn’t help but look up. Cole was leading someone in off the street, and the women in the café all flocked over to help. What was going on?
“Oh, you poor thing,” Jessica said to the rail-thin woman Cole guided to a chair. Probably another tourist who’d had too much of the Arizona sun. So why was his pulse skip a couple of times?
“Rick, get her a cushion,” Tina said.
“Get her a glass of water, too,” Jess added, kneeling by the woman.
“I got it,” Soren said, going behind the counter for a glass. He counted to ten as he filled the glass. Damn, why was his hand shaking? And why was his heart suddenly revving in overtime? It wasn’t as if he’d witnessed a terrible accident. It was just some lady feeling faint. His inner bear, though, reacted like it was much more, pacing and growling inside his mind.
What? he wanted to yell. What?
He glanced outside as he carried the glass to the woman. Only a few weeks ago, a band of rogues had made their second attack on members of his clan. Were they back? Was that why his bear was suddenly on alert?
But there were no suspicious vehicles or strangers sulking about. Not much of anything happening outside on a Sunday morning. All the action was in the café.
He kneeled in front of the woman and held out the glass. The hand that reached for the glass was covered in wicked burn marks, and he winced a little, just seeing them.
“I’m fine,” the woman said, straightening. The curtain of her hair parted, and Soren froze.
For a minute, everything froze. His heart stopped beating. The blood slurped to a stop in his veins. His lungs halted in mid-breath, and even his bear went from rattling the bars of the mental cage he kept it cooped behind to absolutely, positively still.
Her hair was darker. Her scent had changed a tiny bit, too. And she was thin, far, far too thin. But the second his eyes locked on those impossibly green eyes, he knew.
“Soren?” It was barely a whisper, but her voice shot straight to his heart.
“Sarah,” he managed.
Mate! his inner bear roared. Alive!
It was Sarah. His Sarah. Alive!
He wanted to grab her and dance her around. To crush her to his chest and never, ever let go. He wanted to roar loud enough for folks all the way back in Montana to hear. To sit her down and start feeding her hearty meals to make up for whatever illness or hard times responsible for making her so gaunt.
But before he could do any of those things, her hand dropped her belly. A stretched-out, round-as-a-basketball belly so out of place on that thin frame. His breath caught as his mind slowly processed what that meant.
Pregnant. She was pregnant.
For a split second, his bear nearly jumped for joy. But then his mind caught up, doing the math. He hadn’t seen Sarah in nearly a year — the time he’d been forced to leave home plus the months since then, when he thought she was gone forever. Nearly a year, which meant…
The glass he was holding slipped out of his grip and shattered on the floor.
Please, Sarah’s beseeching eyes cried. Please let me explain.
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Blue Moon Saloon
Damnation (Book 1)
Temptation (Book 2)
Redemption (Book 3)
Perfection (a short story prequel to the series)
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Desert Wolf: Complete Collection (Four short stories)
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Desert Heart (Book 4)
Desert Yule (a short story)
Desert Rose (Book 5)
Desert Roots (Book 6)
Charmed in Vegas
Gambling on Her Dragon (A paranormal romance with a zany twist)
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Uncharted
Entangled
Windswept
Adrift
Travel Romance
Veiled Fantasies
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